Nikon CoolPix P6000

Finally, Nikon decided that Canon's leadership in the high-end compact segment should be challenged. What took them so long?

The first thing that will attract you to this camera is build-in GPS that works pretty well. It takes about fifteen minutes to get the first sat fix though. No more carrying extra devices with you just to get your position recorded for geo-tagging.

Some initial reports from users complained about the "white dots" in JPG files at ISO speed higher than 200. I found that this was due to too aggressive default sharpening setting in the JPG options. As soon as you soften sharpening, the white dots disappear. Voila. BTW, pictures taken in ISO 64 by this camera are absolutely stunning.

It has some oddities too. The first one is the lack of Mac support. ***? The world embracing Mac more and more, most advanced photographers (that incidentally are the target audience for this camera) are using mostly Macs, and Nikon drops support for them? Nonsense. Truth be told, latest Adobe's products such as PhotoShop support NRW (Nikon new RAW) files in this camera, so you do have options, but Nikon's own high-end software doesn't support you, Mac users.
Another oddity is the LAN port. I guess, Nikon would rather put in Wi-Fi instead, but figured that GPS and Wi-Fi would drain the battery really fast, so they decided that LAN will do. I guess, Nikon plans to introduce the network of public RJ-45 outlets all around the world. Just kidding.

A few words about RAW recording speed. Some people complain that it takes about 4 sec when using regular speed SD card. It's true, although I found that it's less with SanDisk's Extreme III cards. I don't see this as an issue, because you will most likely use the RAW capability for pictures of static things anyway.

Despite the shortcomings, this is a very impressive camera hands down. Especially, if you already have a Nikon system and can use your SB-600, 800, 900 flash with this little marvel. Before this camera, you should have been considering Canon G9 or the new G10. No longer.

Updated on Oct 23, 2008

Update. I have an opportunity to compare pictures taken of the same objects with P6000 and G10. I was surprised to learn that G10 with its more megapixels is actually much softer and has less contrast than P6000. Before you accuse me in Canon bashing, I always owned only Canon advanced digital compacts starting with G2 and S30, but right now Nikon P6000 is simply a better camera than anything produced by Canon in this segment.

I work on a team where we require the use of a GPS camera. Recently we purchased a variety of cameras to determine which we should buy as standard equipment in our kit bags. We do a lot of expeditionary work around the planet and having integral gps sure makes life easier. The GPS antenna on this camera is just terrible. Nikon is a camera company, not an electronics or GPS company. I'm sure this camera has an excellent lenses. However, we need the GPS functions more than we need excellent photographs. Our photos just have to be good enough. Face it, if you wanted nice pictures you buy a professional grade camera.

I bought the camera to get a good compact camera with built in GPS so I could automatically tag photos with locations. The camera itself has some poor design features notably the power on/off switch which often has to be pressed multiple times and the very slow image recording. The fatal flaw however is the GPS which simple does not work. In the absence of the GPS there is no reason to buy this camera. I bought the camera from Wall Street Photo through Amazon. Wall Street has not responded to my request for a refund. I have tried contacting Amazon and we'll see what happens.